Just how “unaccompanied” are the children coming across the border?

posted at 2:01 pm on July 16, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

The border crisis has been depicted as a wave of children and teens overwhelming US Border Patrol resources, traveling mainly alone through hostile territory controlled by drug cartels and gangs. The Washington Post’s Joshua Partlow calls this “somewhat misleading,” as least as pertaining to the definition of “unaccompanied.” Many are not traveling with their parents, but most of those are traveling with another adult of their acquaintance:

The “unaccompanied minors” who walked out of the brush on the banks of the Rio Grande and turned themselves into Border Patrol officers last month were not, technically, unaccompanied. In the group of 15 people that we watched that night, about half of them appeared to be adults, including men and a woman carrying a baby, in addition to several children.

It’s the most potent image in the current immigration crisis: Tens of thousands of Central American children on a dangerous solo exodus out of their countries. But from what I’ve seen reporting on this issue from the U.S. border and in Honduras, it is also somewhat misleading.

The term “Unaccompanied Alien Children,” or UACs, as used by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, refers to people up to age 17 who are traveling without a parent or legal guardian. It does not mean they are traveling alone.

In migrant shelters in Mexico and Honduras, talking to both children and adults who are making these journeys, or have been deported after failing to reach the United States, the most common scenario seems to be children who are traveling in groups that include adult relatives, neighbors, smugglers or others. Often the children migrating already have one or more parents living in the United States, and they are considered “unaccompanied,” even if traveling with other adult relatives.

Children truly traveling alone “seem[] to be the exception,” Partlow concludes. If so, that provides a different context to the recent flood of immigrants crossing illegally into the US, and that has an impact on how the US can approach it. The narrative thus far is of children left to themselves with no adults to watch out for their interests, and demands for an open-arms policy have risen at least in part because of that perception.

The most common way such minors are granted permanent residency is not via asylum at all, but rather by receiving Special Immigrant Juveniles Status (SIJS), which aims to help foreign children in the United States who have been abused, abandoned, or neglected. …

What’s more, most unaccompanied minors have no legal representation. Immigration court judges will advise children to pursue a certain legal path, such as receiving an SIJS determination from a state court. But, immigration advocates say, children often lack the resources and the basic understanding of American law to follow the judges’ orders.

“Many of these children don’t even know what a lawyer or a deportation order is,” says Kristen Jackson, a lecturer at the University of California at Los Angeles, who specializes in immigration law. “Once … [unaccompanied children] are taken in, all are placed before an immigration judge. The question is whether they’re going to be able to access a state court, which often depends on circumstances beyond their control.”

These systems may also be difficult for adults to navigate too, but if Partlow is correct, they’ll be present to deal with the problem. Also, these children wouldn’t necessarily qualify as “abandoned or neglected” either, since the adults came with them and are relatives or friends. That would also hamper their eligibility for standard asylum, the other option, because they have to show that the children have been persecuted “as a result of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or social group.” Under the particular circumstances of this immigration crisis, that’s not going to be a common finding.

In other words, “unaccompanied” appears to be a legal term that has been largely mistaken as a descriptive account of their actual circumstances. Kudos to Partlow for clarifying it, and we’ll see how many other media outlets adjust their reporting and their assumptions accordingly.

The federal government has put 200 of the unaccompanied minors in Nebraska, and Governor Dave Heineman wants to know who they are. Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE) will propose legislation requiring such notification in the future:

Just last week it was announced that over 200 unaccompanied illegal immigrant children have been placed in Nebraska. Now, Governor Heineman and other Congressional leaders in Nebraska want the names of those children.

Today, Heineman and Congressional leaders from Nebraska sent a letter to Secretary of HHS Sylvia Burwell. The letter says that neither Governor Heineman nor mayors of the communities have any formal notification of the large scale relocation.

The leaders are requesting that HHS immediately provide the names of the children to the state, along with identification numbers and dates, and their sponsors names and addresses. …

In addition to that letter, US Senator Mike Johanns has sponsored legislation in Washington dealing with unaccompanied illegal immigrants.

The bill would require the federal government to notify state officials if unaccompanied alien children are placed in their states.

How many of these came across with adult relatives and friends, and where have they been moved?

In other words, “unaccompanied” appears to be a legal term that has been largely mistaken as a descriptive account of their actual circumstances. Kudos to Partlow for clarifying it, and we’ll see how many other media outlets adjust their reporting and their assumptions accordingly.

Thus, in cases where illegal immigrants have summoned their children to the US and are not in prison or hospitalized, this 2008 doesn’t apply to the kids. So the kids can be turned back immediately. In a twofer, why don’t we deport the parent(s) at the same time?

LUBBOCK, Texas—An illegal immigrant who was released by U.S. authorities with a Notice to Appear has been arrested for the alleged murder of a woman and kidnapping of children on U.S. soil. The alleged crimes occurred after the man was released.
The man, Pedro Alberto Monterroso-Navas, entered the U.S. illegally with children and turned himself in to U.S. Border Patrol agents. He was processed and released, as are all illegal immigrants who come as unaccompanied minors or incomplete family units from Central America. The alien is from Honduras.

The bottom line is almost none of these illegal aliens qualify for any type of residency under existing immigration law and that includes the 2008 trafficking law signed by Bush. Obama is facilitating human smuggling and many Republicans are looking to give Obama additional funding to do it.

then all us hard working white guys can retire in Central America or Europe or Australia and take our money with us and watch the SOBs starve up here. I’ll be damned if I am going to support 30-50 million uneducated illegals in USA.

Can’t bring myself to take positive planning steps to expatriating myself, but the thought has been on my mind a lot recently.

I’ll probably retire in the next 10 years, but who knows what condition this country and it’s various regions will be in. I know where I live, there’s been an unbelievable demographic shift over the past 30-40 years….almost all of it over the past 10-15 years.

Under the particular circumstances of this immigration crisis, that’s not going to be a common finding.

In a rational world, maybe, where judges understood the meaning of words and acted in accord with the strict interpretation of the law. Unfortunately, “social groups” is a really squishy term that a progressive judge (and almost all the immigration judges are progressives) can use with carte blanche to grant asylum willy-nilly.

Australia frequently turns away boatloads of would-be illegal aliens, Mexico imprisons illegal aliens (except the thousands they’re currently allowing to travel across the country to the U.S., on a special 72-hour only pass), China and Iran execute illegal aliens, etc.

Only America is expected to throw open its doors — and its treasury — to every foreigner on the planet who thinks he or she can get more of whatever they want here.

As usual, “the children” are serving as a distraction to the media, including the normally conservative media, while this lawless administration has the border patrol providing transportation for adults and “family units” to cities across the US where they are released to.

Can’t bring myself to take positive planning steps to expatriating myself, but the thought has been on my mind a lot recently.

Start planning before it is too late. I came here from Canada, so moving countries again not a stretch. But one needs to plan ahead and get some assets out of country, as when the caca hits the fan, you may not be able to take it with you.

Just ask people who escaped form Berlin Wall, Cuban boat people, Vietnamese after fall of Saigon. They all just had the clothes on their back.

The Dems already have a plan to seize all 401Ks, IRAs etc in an emergency (can you say stroke of a pen)as when debt hits $20T and dollar collapses. I don’t trust this regime any further than Obama can throw a ball.

How many of these came across with adult relatives and friends, and where have they been moved?

HHS will gladly provide those answers for us when they have a clear picture of what is going on.
Six months later, a computer hard drive crash destroyed the information. It was not backed up as it was on a local PC and not a server. So sorry.

A progressive colleague was going all out in support of allowing these new illegal aliens from Central America stay in the country, providing for them, and eventually granting them amnesty. He argued passionately that it was the only ‘human solution’.

When he began to tell me that these children and mothers were starving in their nations of origin and only came here to be able to get enough to eat and have a decent quality of life, I presented him with random photographs of some of these illegal aliens being taken into custody.

I pointed out that not only are they well fed and reasonably well dressed, that many of them, children and adults alike, are obese. People who are starving are not obese. People living in abject poverty are not reasonably well dressed and are rarely wearing freshly laundered clothing. I sent along some photos of actual famine victims and children suffering from malnutrition and living in poverty from Africa, India, and the slums of Lima, Peru.

The Dems already have a plan to seize all 401Ks, IRAs etc in an emergency (can you say stroke of a pen)as when debt hits $20T and dollar collapses. I don’t trust this regime any further than Obama can throw a ball.

Mexico City, July 08, 2014 – We applaud yesterday’s announcement by Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto regarding Mexico’s strategy for its southern border. The Mexican government has been working on this strategy for more than a year, and has routinely briefed the U.S. government on Mexico’s objectives….

Step one of the Plan is TRANSIT visas for anyone entering Mexico across its southern border ON THE WAY elsewhere (i. e., USA).

A US Army division bivouacked in Mexico with armed guards posted every 10 yard would not be safe–let alone unaccompanied children.

Bandits, drug dealers, child molesters and just your every day utter crazies ,who would slice you open just to test blade sharpness, lurk everywhere. Then there’s one of the meanest deserts on earth, bereft of both food and water and infested with rattlesnakes, tarantulas and scorpions-in a country larger than the combined size of the UK, France, Spain and Italy.

Think of an unaccompanied child traveling over 500 miles from the Guatemala border to the US border. Army Rangers, without regular resupply air drops would all die less than half-way.

But if you believe this you probably also believe that Lois Lerner and friends had seven simultaneous hard drive crashes but only on computers carrying incriminating information.

A sane and loyal American leader would recognize all the actions of Mexico and these Central American countries as an act of war. But then, a sane and loyal American leader would not be conspiring with Mexico and Central America in that act of war. Tell me Speaker Boehner, is treason grounds for impeachment? Or does it have to be treason treason?